Web3 enables the technology to indulge in your love for speculation and idealism

does it seem as if web3 was created just a few months ago? It is the same here in San Francisco. Suddenly, some of the largest companies in the world are seriously referred to mythical digital utopia.

This is no coincidence. Web3 was launched by tech investors. But there was an urgently needed optimism for the broader sector.

This optimism showed itself on the ethdenver, the largest crypto conference in the United States. The event, which took place last month in the snowy Denver, had a very reserved aesthetics. The main stage looked like she had just held a warehouse party. Most participants appeared in hoodies and jeans. Because I was wearing an elegant coat, I was often confused with an event organizer.

But ethdenver was also one of the most good -natured conferences on which I have ever been. So what if the price of ether, the second largest cryptocurrency in the world, had crashed from a maximum of $ 4,815 to less than $ 3,000? The Ethereum blockchain on which it builds up would save the world!

Nobody mentioned money. The focus was on cooperation on the Internet. "I think this is the mechanism for a new society," said a speaker. "This is how we create pluralistic civilization," said another. Elon Musk's younger brother Kimbal appeared on stage to talk about philanthropy. Vitalik Buterin, the 28-year-old Russian-Canadian co-founder of Ethereum, spoke of a culture that focuses on new ideas.

does that sound confusing? It was. If you have problems with web3, this is because it is still an amorpher collective term that is used to cover cryptocurrencies, the metaverse, non -fungible tokens and the idea of ​​a community -controlled, "decentralized" Internet.

Some of them are new, some things are not. The idea that users have the Internet goes back decades, although the term web3 is attributed to Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood in 2014. He reached a critical mass last September when the technical risk capitalist Chris Dixon a rel = "Nofollow Noopener" Target = "_ blank" href://twitter.com/cdixon/status/144220162665344402?ang=en " Data trackable = "link"> Twitter-thread describes it as a clear new era of the Internet. First came web 1 (1990 decentralized internet), then web 2 (Big Tech Circa 2005-20), now web3.

The data is an invention, just like the dividing lines, with which a generation was referred to as boomer and a different one. But they are a good way to think about the time frame in which large technology companies have taken over the power and to imagine another future.

This future depends on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. In a way, Web3 is really a way to rename crypto investments. The volatility of Bitcoin and the lack of a real application mean that some still dismiss it as a fad. Web3 is presented as something more and more durable and more durable: a way to use the same mechanism to change the way the world works.

This is helpful for investors such as the VC company Andreessen Horowitz, in which Dixon is partner. It strives to raise up to $ 4.5 billion for new crypto funds. It is also helpful for companies that strive for a new beginning. In the same month, Dixon tweets published on web3, Facebook was renamed Meta and explained that his future was in metavers. There is another connection. The company expects users to access meta-verse via virtual reality hardware like their own oculus headsets. Dixon headed the early investment of Andreessen Horowitz in Oculus.

Is that an incentive for radical, positive changes? Or is it just a new way for tech investors and companies to put on money? Maybe it's both. In Web3, the technology has finally found a new way to indulge in its love for speculation and idealism.